The dangers inside your car in an accident

This is the second year I am participating in the #CarseatFullstop campaign which aims to educate parents about the importance of car seats for children up to 12 years of age. The campaign was founded last year by concerned Cape Town mom and blogger, Mandy Lee Miller.

When statistics show that 93% of children are not buckled up, the need for car safety education is evident. Car passenger deaths are actually the fourth leading cause of death in children in South Africa. Many of those deaths are preventable.

The campaign has grown this year, with 31 bloggers and social media influencers taking to their online platforms to help spread awareness amongst parents and caregivers.

I will be sharing articles over the next few weeks on car seats and please go like the #CarseatFullstop Facebook page for all the updates. This year I want to focus my article on the dangers that are inside our car, not just what’s out on our roads.

Loose objects in our car

I was in the car the other day and I looked across to my dashboard, where I had stored my cellphone and garage remote. It got me thinking what would happen if we were in an accident, and how my cellphone could hit the kids in the backseat. My cellphone seems innocent enough on the dashboard, besides of course the risk of smash-and-grab, which is pretty low in Knysna. But did you know that when a car crashes or suddenly stops, the object takes on the weight of the speed you were travelling multiplied by its actual weight? In short, that cellphone can become a dangerous flying projectile.

What about everything else that is left lying around the car? I’ve put together some of the items we often store in our car in the photo above, and here are a few more to consider, including:

Grocery bags. If you brake suddenly while traveling at 50kmh, groceries in the back seat will hit you with the same force as if they had fallen from a two-storey building (see source).